Auto Renew

I hate auto renew just as much as the next guy, and in November word press automatically renews my blog, I keep waiting for the card they have on file to expire but it never does. That being said, I feel obligated to write something every now and again to justify the price I am paying for this blog. There were a number of other titles that were possibilities for this blog based upon what has transpired in my life over the last couple of weeks and the first possibility was Deuce. Last Monday I was multitasking by taking a shit and talking to my brother in law on the phone. My dump ended before the conversation and I chose not to flush. Not sure how my brother in law would have felt knowing I was pooping while talking to him, or if he would have even heard the toilet flush in the background, but not flushing was huge mistake. A number of times I told myself I needed to go up to the master bath and flush but never ended up getting around to it. That night I had dinner at the Chop House with co-workers and when I returned home and had comfortably positioned myself on the couch Shirley yelled down at me to come up and take care of what I had left in the toilet. She went on to tell me she knew it wasn’t the kids because she had asked them. How she knew I was going to blame the kids is likely due to the time I threw our Verizon hotspot at the ground and it hopped up and broke our TV causing the kids to wonder why the cartoons they were watching looked strange. Shirley immediately thought that it had something to do with the kids but I eventually fessed up. Upon my arrival into the master bath the first thing I noticed is that it smelled like the nursery at church, but a little worse, my turd had been marinating all day in the toilet bowl and the first flush did absolutely nothing to it, along with the second flush, the third flush was equally as ineffective as the first two flushes so I grabbed a hanger out of my closet and started poking at it like it was a possum playing dead, eventually dislodging it and flushing it down the toilet.

There is little hope of me having sex on a Monday night, but there was no way that was happening on this particular Monday night, the incident was so traumatic it even killed my insatiable sex drive. I’ve know my wife since 2006, there is little I can say or do that I am embarrassed by in front of her, but it’s somewhat refreshing to know there is still something out there that makes me embarrassed. On that note, her and Aiden share a birthday and it was this past Thursday. Not sure if other husbands go through this, but I imagine a lot of them do, my wife buys whatever she wants as evidenced by the 7 to 13 packages that are delivered to us on a weekly basis. Granted, one or two of the packages are dog food and kitty litter (that arrive monthly) but the other packages are things for her. So, I ended up getting something for me that was also something for her. She has had the same robe for quite some time, it’s about as sexy as the turd I left in the toilet so I ended up upgrading her robe and purchasing a perfume sampler from Alta. The robe isn’t sexy but it is nice and attractive unlike her current robe which screams I am an octogenarian. I knew when purchasing the robe for her that her fist inclination would be to return the robe because she already had a “perfectly” good robe and the one I purchased her was much too expensive (it was an Uggs robe and everything they sell is over priced). However, she didn’t immediately pull the trigger on the return and that made me glad I didn’t do what I did years ago when she was clinging on to some rather unflattering granny panties, just throw it away to get rid of it. She has worn the robe multiple times so I may be able to relocate the other robe to the trash.

The third possible title I toyed with was Party Foul. I invited some of Shirley’s friends and their husbands over for dinner to celebrate her birthday. I made lasagna and a couple of pies for the occasion but also made sure to return the empties in our garage that had been accumulating for at least a month. On my way I picked up Aiden and one of his buddies and Aiden said to his buddy “Russell, you’re about to find out how much my parents drink.” It was a lot of cans, some of which were Dr. Pepper and Coca Cola, but the vast majority were alcohol related beverages. When we arrived at the bottle return there was a line. My kids wanted to just leave the three carts full of cans and hit the road but that seemed like a way to have my worst nightmare come true, being black listed from Meijer. I’m not sure why Michigan still has the archaic bottle return policy, but I’d vote for Whitmer again if it met getting rid of the bottle deposit. While I had set up a party for Shirley for her birthday, I also had to take Aiden and Russel to Craig’s Cruiser’s for his birthday and on my way back home one of the I invitees to the party basically told me, instead of asking, that he was bringing a special guest, because had he asked I would have said no. He brought Tommy and Tommy doesn’t have an off switch, he was coming from the golf course where I knew he had already been over served. Sure enough, he spilled a glass of beer all over my kitchen floor, a thoughtful warning to all of us that he was about to go into full on annoying drunk person mode. I had a campfire going and people began to gravitate back into the house to get away from Tommy, he poured a wine glass to the brim, a move I have never seen, a move that tells everyone I’m here to get fucked up. Had I invited someone similar to Tommy to someone else’s party and showed up with him Shirley would have blow a gasket, but Chuck’s wife didn’t seemed to be bothered by Chuck’s party foul as much as she was bothered by Tommy himself. Eventually Tommy left and my wife, and all the other women at the party, realized it could have been way worse, they could have married Tommy. So in the end, Tommy showing up was actually sort of a good thing.

Feeling Lucky

A couple weeks ago we were tasked with dog sitting Shirley’s sister’s dog Lucky. Shirley’s sister and husband are vegetarians. We made BLT’s for dinner one night and gave Lucky some bacon, it was the closest thing to watching someone smoke crack for the first time you could experience without watching someone smoke crack for the first time. (their daughter accidentally had a corn dog at school once and she can’t stop talking about corn dogs) We probably ruined Lucky by giving him a taste of the forbidden. Unlike other people’s kids, I actually like most dogs, but Lucky is incredibly annoying, he’s some kind of doodle and I’m not sure who decided to combine every possible dog breed with poodles but it was a terrible idea. On top of barking at all hours of the night for no reason and waking me up, Lucky also has a perpetual red rocket, his scheeth isn’t long enough to contain his penis, it’s pretty gross, and likely a product of breeding another breed with a poodle. Along the lines of my wife’s side of the family, my mother in law is really good at sabotaging weekends or vacations with really dumb ideas. Earlier this summer she decided to rent her child hood home that is now a VRBO. It’s in Fremont which is enough to indicate it was a terrible idea, but on top of that, it’s also on a glorified swamp and there is very little to do there. Of course, everyone claims it was a great time, but I know better.

Labor Day weekend is usually the last real weekend to enjoy Green Lake but Shirley’s mom decided to book hotel rooms in Whitehall. Instead of making a real big deal about going up there (I wasn’t even consulted about it) I put up a minor fuss and ended up taking our boat up there to bring out to Lake Michigan. It ended up being an ok day but the Thursday night before Labor Day weekend my mother in law texted wondering what we were doing Friday night. ESPN has prognostications as games go on as to the percentage likelihood that a particular team will win the game as it is being played. I wish there was an app that did the same thing for sex. In the morning when I wake up the percentage around 3% and stays there until Shirley gets home from work and then likely dips to around 1%. Taking away my hope by having it go to 0 would actually be a good thing because hope is a dangerous thing. That being said, when I lost my shit about Shirley’s mom not only hijacking Sunday and Monday of Labor Day weekend, but also Friday night, the app would have dipped below zero. I keep trying to tell my wife that spending that much time with your family isn’t normal, but because she spends so much time with her family she doesn’t really have an unbiased third party to give her some perspective.

As far as sex goes, on Sunday morning I came back from Starbucks somewhat ready for business time but began talking to Shirley about how depressing it is that summer just flew by once again. I went into discussing when we should take the boat, boat lift, and walk out docks out of the water. All of the talk caused a mild case of ED, which had never happened to me before. It was quite emasculating but not as nearly as emasculating as someone who lets their wife drive. I see men in the passenger seat with their wife at the wheel and can’t help but think “that guy is a giant pussy” (My vegetarian brother in law lets his wife drive all the time). I don’t consider myself a misogynist unless the topic of discussion is the WNBA, but the old fashioned part of me believes that men should be driving their families around unless they are either drunk or dead.

Speaking of driving, Aiden is now in the process of obtaining his learner’s permit. He only has one more class to take and has done all of his driving. I’m confident that after about ten hours behind the wheel he will be a more competent driver than Shirley. I have noticed that there are now bumper stickers that can be placed on a vehicle warning other driver’s that you have a student driver at the wheel. I am tempted to get one of these after Aiden is done acquiring his driving hours so I can drive like an idiot and not have people get mad at me. It’s similar to when you see someone with a handicap license plate and they drive as if they have no business being on the road, you see the handicap emblem on their license plate and instead of anger you question the decision of the Secretary of State to allow handicap people to operate a motor vehicle, their fucking handicap, shouldn’t that preclude them from driving a car? (I do realize there are a portion of fat fucks who aren’t really handicap but get handicap plates to they park their fat asses closer to the entrance of McDonalds, and they shouldn’t be driving either, these are the same people who use a mart cart to grocery shopping)

Get to the Point

In late April or early May my kids began to hound me about going to Cedar Point. I have fond memories of Cedar Point and after having gone there again, have no idea why. After over a month of harassment I finally caved and committed to a date to go and it morphed into an overnight trip where they each took a friend. This worked out because Shirley and I were able to justify our own room, now that my kids are older it’s super weird sleeping in the same room with everyone, which led to some sexy time before our second day in the park. Our plan was to leave around 1 on Tuesday and spend an evening in the park as well as the following day. Prior to leaving I stopped by the river to ski. I stated we would be leaving around 1 because I knew I would want to ski before we left. Aiden texted me around 11:30 informing me he was ready to go. I did not respond. Shirley texted me while I was skiing and I texted her when I was done that I would be home in 5 minutes. Initially, my gut told me to put my suit back on so that they would think I had been working. I didn’t and as I drove down the road right by our house I decided to pull over and put it on because I had to do a Zoom court hearing from the car on the way to Cedar Point. When I arrived home Shirley asked why I put my suit back on since I had just been at the river. I forgot that she can track where I am through the find my friends app, fortunately she rarely does this because she is typically too busy to keep tabs on me, and for the most part she doesn’t really care what I am up to.

The ride to cedar point was fairly uneventful and I was grateful that the Zoom sentencing I had kept me from noticing how Shirley was driving. I typically don’t ride with her so it is terrifying when I do. After my zoom was done I took over and we made it unscathed. That evening Shirley and I rode the gatekeeper, Ragnorok (sp?), and Millennium Force. I felt like I was going to have a stroke on all of them. Shirley and I ate in the park and also had a couple beers, each round for the two of us was roughly $40, seems like they would make a larger profit by lowering the price and having people buy more, with the added benefit of having more drunk people riding roller coasters, what could go wrong? However, the kids were too enveloped in riding as many coasters as possible so they did not eat. On the way out I was reminded that one of the kids (obviously not mine) was Vegan and that we needed to go to Burger King for an impossible burger. I should have made the kid eat some gravel in the parking lot so that we didn’t have to make multiple stops. My kids were insisting on Raising Canes because they think it’s amazing even though it’s just as over rated in my book, as Chick-Fil-A. We managed to talk all the kids into Burger King and then headed back to the hotel. Vegans are like no one else in America, everyone I know devotes most of their consciousness to thinking about food. But when the food you eat sucks, you don’t look forward to it, and you don’t think about it all that often. Probably similar with most women as to why they don’t seem to really be all that in to sex. My wife’s family typically will discuss lunch plans about 3 minutes after breakfast is concluded and after lunch they are typically on to dinner ideas before I can even start my afternoon nap.

Day 2 we were going to go out for pancakes but pancakes apparently aren’t vegan friendly either. Shirley wanted to create this magical memory of going out for pancakes before we went into the park and she also thought that this was going to be some magical family trip. I told her if she had planned on hanging out with the kids for more than five minutes on this trip she shouldn’t have allowed them to invite friends. We opted for McDonalds and the Vegan kid had a hash brown and may have licked some dust off the floor for additional sustenance. All of the kids were given fast passes and they were off. Shirley and I headed to the back of the park to ride steel vengeance only to discover it was temporarily out of commission. We decided to just wait for it to start back up and after an hour and a half our decision paid off. We jumped back in line to ride it again and after that we noticed that the skies looked ominous. The kids were not answering their phones, turns out their phones were in lockers as they waited to ride top thrill dragster 2. Shirley ended up going into the top thrill line to retrieve them just before the flood gates opened so we left the park to get lunch. Jersey Mikes was thought to be a suitable vegan option since they have a sub that is called a vegan sub but it was a no go. So, realizing there was a chipotle across the street after Shirley and I had put our orders in, Shirley did a mobile order for the vegan kid. Our kids ended up getting Raising Kanes right before we headed back to the park. The kids lucked out and rode Top Thrill 2 twice along with a few other rides. Shirley was on the fence about TT2 but I talked her into it and we went to get in line only to discover that the ride, and all other rides, were closed due to weather. Apparently, if there is a lightning strike within five miles they shut everything down and keep it closed for a half hour and if there is another strike the clock starts all over.

As we were leaving the park there was a set up similar to the 3 point contest in the all star game. It was $12 to try and get in the record books (high score according to the guy was 18 out of a possible 20). I envisioned myself getting at least 19 but didn’t account for the jankity rim, shitty balls, and pressure of the 6 spectators watching me (my wife, two kids, their friends, and the guy running the game). I hit a couple corner 3’s to start only to score 5 points. A crew of guys rolled up after I got done with my first round and they easily could have had some type of affiliation with OPEC, one of them, wearing an Aaron Donald jersey, managed to hit the back board on corner 3’s not once, but twice, I wanted to say to the guy, it’s not as easy as I make it look, but I kept my mouth shut and was going to let my next round speak for itself, but my next round was equally as abysmal as my first, and I notched another 5 points. I was tempted to go for round 3, but the Hollander in me didn’t want to blow another $12 so instead, I used that and more to hit the Dairy Queen outside of the park on our way back to Michigan.

Saturday Night Special

Brendon and George put their house up for sale early this winter. They live in our neighborhood, and although we are not particularly close with them, or any of our other neighbors, we were tasked with hosting their going away party once their house sold after months of sitting on the market. Shirley volunteered for the job and informed me while we were in Puerto Rico on spring break while I had my guard down. I didn’t put up a fight, even though I should have, and the party was on.

Brendon and George were married sometime ago and live adjacent to a lesbian couple. Brendon use to water his flowers in the nude. This was problematic for a number of reasons and led to a confrontation between him and one of our elderly neighbors named Jack who ended up calling Brendon a cock sucker. I’m still trying to figure out why this upset Brendon and George so much. Regardless, Jack was not on the invite list and the attendees were comprised of the lesbian couple, Carrie, who broke up with her long time boyfriend Bill and was forced to move out of our neighborhood as a result, along with Maggie and her daughter. To say I was dreading the party was an understatement, small talk, sign me up for that! People I don’t know at my house, sign me up for that! Max was excited, but mainly because he loves Maggie, who to her credit is attractive. How do I know our dog Max likes Maggie, because the red rocket comes out when Maggie is around, Max has a hump pillow and it doesn’t come out when he’s humping his pillow, but it does when Maggie appears.

To start the night I grabbed a high octane beer and then volunteered to bring Parker to his friend’s house so I could minimize my time at the party. After dropping Parker off I stopped at a party store and grabbed a tall boy of Jack Daniel’s punch and drove around for a while so I could consume it prior to returning to the party. Aiden was still at home, a casualty of not being as popular as Parker. He primarily stayed in his room to masturbate, but did come down for some food. When Aiden isn’t jerking off or staring at his phone, he has been working out at the Y in Caledonia. Even though he eats ice cream every night, tons of candy, and lots of chips, he doesn’t have an ounce of fat on him and is getting pretty toned. When he came down he attracted Brednon’s attention. Brendon began flirting with him which was quite off putting. (Shirley noticed it as well, it wasn’t my imagination) Brendon has a number of boyfriends and his older by 15 years husband George acknowledged at the party that he has to accept Brendon bringing another man into their relationship. As I was grabbing some food I heard George discussing the Jack incident with someone but had not had enough to drink at that point to come to Jack’s defense. Based on what George had revealed and the way that Brendon was eyeballing my son, I think some of Jack’s distrust in Brendon and George was warranted.

Jen and Peg are the lesbians who live adjacent to George and Brendon (I’m not making this up) or should I say use to live next to them. George and Brendon sold their house to a poly family, I had no idea what that meant, but now I do. It’s even more fucked up than being married to a dude and bringing another dude into the relationship. The reason I think it took Brendon and George so long to sell their house is that they were looking for a buyer that would really tell the neighborhood “FUCK YOU” and they found one. While I overheard a lot of stuff at the party, the fact that Jen and Pegg didn’t talk to Brendon and George for the first four years they lived next door was probably the most remarkable. I wanted to ask them, “how were you able to do that? That’s what I want to do, never talk to anyone I live near”. I have a general look of fuck off most of the time, but the fact that my wife thinks she is Miss Congeniality counters all the work I put in at being an asshole. But when you have two people who are together and they both give the fuck off vibe, it is how you don’t talk to your neighbors for 4 years. (wearing a lot of flannel and denim also must help). I’m still not sure which one is Jen and which is Peg, but one of them is so meticulous that they bought a separate mower to mow the property line because Brendon and George don’t give a shit about their lawn and don’t have it treated for weeds. They feared that if they used their zero turn on the property line it would infect their lawn. (Not sure if they did anything to prevent the spread of AIDS across the property line)

As the party was going on I put my drinking into high gear. This happens less frequently now that I am old, but I was on a mission. Brendon and George invited a couple to the party that we had never met and so I steered clear of them and talked to Jen/Peg quite a bit. I also talked to Carrie a decent amount but stayed away from Maggie for the most part so my red rocket wouldn’t come out. Eventually Brendon and George left along with the couple they had invited and Maggie had called it a night long before that, deeply saddening Max. I was in full black out mode at this point of the night and remember just bits and pieces, one of the things I remember was going upstairs. Veteran move by Shirley to stay downstairs and hope I would pass out. Unfortunately, I didn’t and according to her, I came down and demanded that she come upstairs so we could have sex. In my compromised state I was expecting that she would comply with such a reasonable request and make our guests leave, what wife wouldn’t want to have sex with their over served husband? I think there is something in the old testament about wives having to do that no matter how many guests you have to kick out of your house. The next day I felt what I always feel when Steve appears, anxiety and regret. Steve is my alter ego, when I begin dancing, get ready for Steve. The crazy thing about Steve is he is a fun loving guy who likes everyone. However, once Steve crosses a certain line everyone roots for Steve to go unconscious, which frequently happens. Should there be an apology to Carrie, Peg, and Jen? Probably, but Dutch people, especially this Dutch person, like to bury things deep, real deep, and not discuss them. By apologizing I would be acknowledging that there was something wrong. The good news is that Peg and Jen seemed to be fine with no apology, because since that Saturday they act like it’s business as usual, a cursory wave and that’s about it. I love my neighborhood.

We’re in the Club

When I was growing up I was an avid NBA fan. I remembering watching the All Star game and also recording a tribute that CBS did to the 1986 finals between the Celtics and Lakers even though I hated both of those teams, that’s how much I enjoyed the NBA. My parents realized this and we ended up going to a game when the Pistons played the Atlanta Hawks. I thought it was super cool even though we sat at the very top of the Palace in Auburn Hills. I can’t imagine those tickets were much more than $20 a piece, stretching my parent’s monthly entertainment budget to its max. No money was spent on frivolous things at the game such as food or a beverage, and I wasn’t getting any merchandise in the fan shop. Saturday night was an opportunity to allow my kids to get the full NBA experience, we had gone last year to watch the Pistons play the Warriors, but it was a last minute deal. This trip had been discussed at least two days prior to it actually happening. When it was determined that the trip was a go, sometime on Friday, my kids told Shirley they didn’t want her to come along. Did I want her to come along? I was indifferent, I knew that her presence would result in quite a few questions, mostly related to her complete lack of knowledge about basketball, but after fifteen plus years of marriage, I’m accustom to dumb questions from her about sports.

Shirley tried to act like this didn’t bother her, and it is possible it didn’t, my kids managed to land my asshole gene, and it is exacerbated by the fact that one of them is a teenager and the other one is close to being one. She somewhat understood that it really wasn’t about her, and even if she was a cool mom (that doesn’t really exist, there is such a thing as a cool wife, that’s the type fo wife that likes to bang at least twice a month, but that doesn’t have any thing to do with being a cool mom), the kids probably would still prefer that she sit this trip out. There is a dynamic between sons and moms that does not exist between sons and dads. Earlier this winter Parker had done something on Snap chat that garnered the attention of the principle of his school when other parents saw it. He posted a photo of a girl with Down Syndrome and it appeared that he was jerking off to the photo. He wasn’t, that wasn’t what he was going for, but just the fact that he was posting the photo was enough to cause a stir. We determined his punishment was to have his phone taken away for a week. Well, not his phone, but his access to social media and the internet, he could still have his phone to listen to music on the bus, after all he didn’t kill someone, didn’t need to throw him in the kid’s equivalent of the Gulag by taking his phone physically away from him. The reason I am not involved in taking away access to social media and the internet is because I don’t know how to set their time limits or even how most of social media even works. Turns out Parker had a 180 day snap streak going, he was the Lou Gehrig of Snap and wanted to keep his streak alive but it was now in jeopardy due to the draconian nature of his punishment. Shirley ended up relenting and allowed him to continue to post on snap ensuring that he will be a first ballot hall of fame entrant when he is eligible to enter the Social Media Holy of Holies.

So, there you have it, that is insight into why my kids walk all over my wife. I don’t give a shit about much, but they aren’t pulling that kind of stuff on me because they know I will go scorched earth on them if they try. Which leads me to this, and my kids tire of this, but it has to be brought up now more than ever. When I was a kid if I treated my mom like they treat Shirley, my mom would have slapped me, she did slap me for much less, and my did would have beaten the shit out of me, which he did do for much less. On top of all that, well you know my childhood pistons experience, well we didn’t sit at the top row of LCA Saturday night. We were at half court 21 rows up and had access to the club that allowed for all you can eat food and drink. Looking back, I should have bought a club seat for myself and put them at the top of the arena. I purchased the actual tickets off of a ticket app the morning of the game and was quite satisfied with the price considering the prime location and the all you can eat food option. The Pistons game attracts all shapes and sizes, but mainly the overweight/obese size, if you are in to BBW’s, especially the black kind, LCA is the place to be. Regardless, there are quite a few people who attend the games who are energetic Pistons fans and LCA is a place to be seen and to see the people who are looking to be seen. The attire black men and women can pull off is truly remarkable. However, there was one troubling fashion trend taking place at LCA, and probably across every other NBA venue, white men wearing basketball jersey’s, one white guy had was wearing his Cade jersey bareback, the only ting that could have made him more awkwardly white is if he had tried to dance.

The game itself featured SGA at his best, he is the top candidate for MVP and was pretty much unstoppable. On top of it the refs routinely allowed him to take an extra step after stopping and to push off on just about every shot he took. Even more infuriating was the fact that the Thunder were roughing up the Pistons on the perimeter the entire game while the Pistons were called for a number of ticky tack fouls. By the third quarter, after the dipshit refs called for a replay to determine if there was a hostile act by Beef Stew (who in their defense is just a second away from fighting even his own mom if it would help the Pistons win), when what actually happened was that the thunder player tripped over his own guy and landed awkwardly. After the replay revealed there was no hostile act, the refs went to give the Thunder player who was fouled originally on a loose ball foul, two shots. It was loose ball foul, it should have been side out so Cade told the refs they didn’t know what the fuck they were doing, which they didn’t, and was T’d up not once, but twice. I’m confident the ref who did this was just trying to overshadow the crews token lesbian ref and take some heat off of her for the terrible calls she had made and was about to make. For some reason the NBA thinks that women should ref men’s basketball, isn’t that what the WNBA is for? well, that and feeding the insatiable thirst for terrible basketball that is almost unwatchable. Funny thing, the WNBA lost 40 million dollars last year and it is coming back for another season. How have we been so into women’s empowerment that no one is willing to state how ridiculous this is? I think women are doing pretty good and don’t need a sports league that loses money to keep trending forward.

Back to my kids and how good they have it. Me telling them how good they have it and how shitty my childhood was isn’t really getting the message across, causing them to be thankful for what they have. My kids go to camp every summer, it’s an awesome experience that they love. Instead of sending them away to an enjoyable camp, wouldn’t it be great if you could send your kids to spend a week living your childhood? I’d pay four times what the price of what fun camp costs, and how awesome would it be if they thought they were going to fun camp but instead wound up at shitty camp that emulated your childhood?

  • For those of you worried about Shirley, she had an amazing night at home by herself and was up when we rolled in at 12:30, doing a puzzle or crafting, I wasn’t sure which one because I was too exhausted to tell, but whichever it was it had her so preoccupied she hadn’t put clean sheets on the bed in response to me stripping it and throwing the sheets in the wash earlier that day. Maybe my kids do have some valid reasons for the way they treat their mother.

Road Trip

Back when the Pistons were tailing off from their Championship in 2004 the former President of the Orlando Magic use to play pick up basketball at MVP. He handed out a bunch of tickets for us to a Pistons playoff game against the Magic. The crew that played at MVP at the time was fairly new to me but I somehow managed to get the invite and it probably had something to do with me arranging for a party bus (it actually had a stripper pole but the downside is the side door on the bus didn’t really work and was probably a major safety hazard) to take us to the Palace of Auburn Hills. Right out of the gate our bus driver rear ended another vehicle on the way to the liquor store to get roadies for the 2 and a half hour ride. No sooner than the driver could get out of his seat did the vehicle in front of us speed off. Either the guy was drunk, didn’t have a license, or both. We headed over to the Palace fully stocked with booze and managed to drink most of it in route to the Palace. A majority of us were loaded as we entered the Palace and to everyone’s surprise a former NFL lineman who was with us was the first one to end up puking, unfortunately it was after he entered the venue. Our ticket provider gave us four good seats near the Orlando bench and the rest were upper level seats, they weren’t terrible but they weren’t awesome. The plan was to rotate everyone out of those seats but due to my over consumption of alcohol I didn’t exactly stick with the plan and had to be escorted out of my seat by one of the other people in our group. On the ride home one of the guys wanted to stop for more beer but the bus driver was resolute and wouldn’t cave to his request.

While I look back on that trip with a degree of fondness, the actual experience was probably akin to fighting in a war, it wasn’t all bad, but most of it was. (one of the 7 readers of this blog was on the trip with me and he is still working with his therapist through the experience) Fast forward to late summer of this year, there is a guy in our golf league who arranges various trips and a trip he had arranged was to the Lion’s Bills game that was this past Sunday. It was the classic case of something that sounds really good at the time but when the time rolls around to actually participate in the event there aren’t many things you would less rather do. I actually tried to get out of the trip by texting the organizer that it was my father in law’s birthday party on Sunday and I should probably bow out if he could find someone to take my ticket. I told Shirley that I was trying to replace myself on the trip (after just having told he I was going on the trip) and she said it sounded like fun and that I should go. I knew bette but let her talk me into thinking it was still a good idea.

We met at the Gravity Park and Ride at noon and I still had questioned my decision not to drive myself, I wanted to save on parking, but in hindsight would have paid at least $500 for parking if it got me out of the horrors of that bus trip. The crew was definitely a mixed bag and not to be a snob, but I am going to sound like one, mostly blue collar guys who probably get fucked up every weekend and some weekdays and that’s what they liver for. There was discussion about a group of them meeting for drinks at Gravity before the bus so I had an inkling already what to mentally prepare for, but nothing could really prepare me for what I was going to experience that day. First of all, the most annoying person in my golf league, possibly most annoying person I have ever encountered, was going to be on the trip. When we boarded the bus he immediately hooked his phone up to the bluetooth on the bus and began playing his music as loud as it would go. He skipped through songs like a flat stone across a lake, with his fist periodically pumping in the air like we were at a rave. Of course he had his hat on backwards, he was the prototypical hat on backwards guy, 99% of hat on backwards guys are intolerable. He also enjoyed randomly doing knuckles for no reason, I don’t like doing knuckles when there is a reason, why the fuck do you keep sticking your fist out, leave me alone.

As we were getting close to Lowell the captain of our trip instructed the driver that we were to stop at every rest stop on the way to Ford Field. Not because we need a bathroom break, there was a bathroom on the bus, but because we needed to get out and smoke periodically. I didn’t realize people still smoked, again I sound like a snob here, but I don’t hang out with people who smoke, it’s a disgusting habit, ok, one of my good friends smokes, and when we were golfing this past spring we were riding together and someone hit a ball under our cart while we were sitting in it and he was holding his pack of smokes, it caused his smokes to go flying everywhere when he was startled by the oncoming golf ball. It was pretty funny, but he’s one of the few people I’d be willing to overlook the smoking thing and still hang out with. Midway between the first and second rest stop two guys snorted some cocaine. Witnessing that may be an every day occurrence for some people, but it caught me off guard and I’m a criminal defense attorney. One of the guys who was doing it has a the torso of someone who is 6’6 and midget arms and legs and he’s missing part of his ear. Why is he so fucked up? Because his mother did drugs while he was in utero, and I guess he’s been addicted ever since. The other guy was the only black guy on the trip and he was wearing a fuzzy Honolulu blue lion’s hat that looked like a top hat but it was fuzzy, it looked awesome on him, but would have looked ridiculous on any of the rest of us.

There was a guy sitting across from me (it was limo style seating) who was wearing big headphones and reminded me of Warren from There’s Something about Mary. He was eating marijuana gummies like they were skittles. He also had a number of the mannerisms Warren possessed and was likely on the spectrum. No one seemed to know the guy so I have no idea how he wound up on the trip. As we were nearing Ford Field the super fucking annoying guy from my golf league, we can call him knuckles, started talking about a tailgate he was invited to at Greyson. Greyson is a high end golf apparel store where you pay $300 for the same golf pants you can get at Costco for $30. He invited the guy next to me who hates him but is more tolerable of annoying people than I am, and he came up with some BS excuse why he couldn’t go with him to the tailgate. Once in the stadium we walked around a bit and our party continued to drink like it was the last day of their lives, or just another day for them I guess, and I continued not to drink. I didn’t see paying $15 for Miller Lite, it’s not good, and getting a buzz on would just exacerbate my problematic circumstances. Once we sat down I didn’t leave my seat, it was a fun game to watch even though the Lions lost and had three more key players go down with major injuries. However, Josh Allen in person is amazing. I don’t think you can fully appreciate the throws he makes unless you are in person.

With the Lions losing, I thought it would be a fairly benign ride home. I figured the loss would take the wind out of everyone’s sails and we could have some peace and quiet on our way back to GR. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Knuckles quickly realized no one else was going to be the Dj so he fired up the tunes, some dip shit took 20 extra minutes to get back to the bus, and a few of the high ons who were thinking ahead chowed down on their soggy Jimmy John’s sandwiches that most of us ate on our way there. Knuckles took it upon himself to try and talk to me even though I had my air pods in, I wanted to ask him “what part of this isn’t telling you to fuck off?” but instead I kept my answers to his stupid questions really short, I got a parting fist bump from him, which I think was an admission of defeat, and I never spoke to him again. Two good friends of mine were on the trip, one of them, thinks of me as a good friend, Kevin Clark, my only friend who smokes, and another guy by the name of Geoff, I am not sure where I stand on his friend list, but we do a lot of stuff together, he may be just tolerating me in the hopes that I quit my golf league (or get kicked out of it again) and he can take my place and become a permanent member of the league instead of just a sub. Why do I mention them? Because they are both laid back and super chill. That’s what it takes to go on a bus trip like I just described. On top of it, Geoff, and Kevin to a degree are incredibly positive. Geoff is the type of guy who will compliment your shot in golf even if it lands in the middle of the pond, my response to a similar shot would be “that was terrible”.

Do I want to be like Geoff and Kevin? Maybe. Am I 50 years old and is there any hope for me changing? Probably not. Two things occurred recently that make me realize I am probably an asshole for life. The first was at a Christmas party where the guy who organized the bus trip and is in my golf league was telling Shirley I’m an asshole, but I’m their asshole (meaning the guys in the league I am friends with) I took this as a good thing, but I’m starting to wonder. The second thing happened while meeting with a client this week. The client asked me how frank he could be with me, I told him not to hold back. He went on to say that he had been researching me and discovered that I am an asshole. So, when you Google my name I guess “he’s an asshole” is the first thing that comes up. I may want to see about that reputation service you can hire to fix negative things about you on the internet. That being said, I have lived here long enough, met enough people, and know that West Michigan is a tight enough knit community, that I am probably always going to be known as the asshole to some degree, my only hope would be either entering the witness protection program and starting fresh or hitting my head and having amnesia like Harrison Ford in that one movie, and actually becoming a nice person. I don’t really have a reason to enter the witness protection plan, but at my advanced age you never know when I may take a tumble and hit my head so there is hope.

Time Squared

Shirley has been going to New York on trips for a few years now and it all started back when her cousin moved to Brooklyn. Her cousin served as a tour guide for the trips that involved Shirley’s sisters and cousins and Shirley did a good job of romanticizing NYC even though I knew going there to sight see would likely inflict significant PTSD. Well, I finally bit the bullet and planned a trip for the Jansma’s for the weekend after Shirley and Aiden’s birthday (11.13.10 for Aiden and 11.13.?? for Shirley). We flew out of GR and as I was getting ready to board the plane I asked myself are there husbands who ask their wives if they can buy WIFI when they are on a flight together? The idea of asking my wife if I can buy wifi seems almost as ridiculous as asking if I can buy another pair of Airforce Ones (I have four pair currently, my latest edition are white with a pink swoosh, I love them). However, I am sure there are men who do ask, and those men are the same men who have to sit down when they pee.

We flew out of GR at 6pm on Friday night and landed in Laguardia a little after 8. We had roughly five or six miles to get from Queens to where we were staying in Manhattan and it took an hour and a half to get there. The cab driver suggested that any backpacks be placed in the trunk so that they didn’t block the vents but Aiden decided to keep his with him for the express purpose of blocking the vents. It was like the center of the sun in the back of the cab but Shirley and the cab driver were completely comfortable. The hotel we stayed at was quite close to Time’s Square and after checking in we embarked on a trip to go people watching and catch a late dinner. As we neared Times Square I was overwhelmed with the amazing food options, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, and TGI Fridays just to mention a few. However, we wanted to get authentic cuisine and settled on a pizza place to get some of that New York pizza everyone speaks so fondly of. Unfortunately, we made it back to the room in time to stream the Tyson/Paul fight.

Our Saturday itinerary was to begin with a trip to the 911 memorial and then we would play it by ear. We walked around the area and then decided we should hit the observatory at the top of one World Trade Center. It was a sunny day with completely clear visibility and the views were breathtaking. I could have stayed up there for a bit longer but Parker was getting bored so we headed down and decided since we were close to where the ferry was to go to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, we should probably knock that out while we were over there. In order to get to the ferry you have to endure some hard core soliciting from a number of unsavory individuals. New York hats, sweatshirts, and “fresh” fruit were the primary wares these folks were trying to peddle. Fortunately, I give off a fairly obvious “fuck you” aura so most people leave me alone. However, I frequently wear Lions, Pistons, Tigers or U of M apparel and this makes people think they have some type of in with me and that if they mention the particular team I happen to be wearing I will buy something from them. This couldn’t be further from the case. While I will gladly talk to a perfect stranger about Cade Cunningham’s turnover issues or Jared Goff’s lack of mobility that can be compensated for by his pinpoint accuracy and one of the best offensive l lines ever assembled, anyone who doesn’t genuinely care about my take on any of the sports teams I root for, can fuck off.

Aiden really wanted to get off and tour the area where the Statue of Liberty is but we convinced him otherwise due to the fact that it would have involved disembarking from the ferry and then getting back in line and boarding another ferry to go to Ellis Island where we would have to do it all over again. Ellis Island was amazing and would have been even more amazing if my kids weren’t with me. I have to admit, I got kind of emotional seeing what the immigrants who came to our country went through to get here, what they endured when they got here, and how great of an opportunity it was to be allowed to immigrate here. I was maybe 20% through the first area when my family began calling to inquire about my where a-bouts and tell me to get moving. Eventually I gave into their demands and reluctantly left the wing of the museum to go meet up with them. We had walked miles and miles and decided to return to the hotel for some rest before we met up with Shirley’s cousin at a park near our hotel where they had a Christmas Bizarre going on. The 60 degree temperatures didn’t seem very Christmasy and the throngs of people being herded into the park made the holiday spirit even more difficult to generate. Dinner was at an Italian restaurant that was underwhelming but we managed to locate an incredible gelato place near Madison Square Garden that more than made up for our lackluster dinner. Now the first thing I noticed, and I admit this isn’t normal, was that it would be nearly impossible to run around our hotel. In addition, I try to get some form of exercise in almost every day, walking 12 miles wasn’t exercise in my book but I was too tired when I got back to the hotel on Saturday to go for a run. So, Sunday morning I got up early and made my way over to the East River for a run. It was pretty awesome to run with the Manhattan skyline in view along with the river and various other landmarks. It was relief to get my run out of the way and when I got back to the hotel we decided to head to Central Park. Again, the weather was sunny and in the 60’s, pretty remarkable for mid November. Central Park was incredible.

After Central Park we were toying with either going to the MET or hitting Fifth Avenue where all the famous shopping is located. Shirley wanted to go the MET but since it was also Aiden’s birthday weekend he won out and we hit Fifth Avenue. I had to pee real bad and regretted not hitting the Central Park lavatory on my way out. There was a port a potty near a construction site but it had a lock on it. Locking a port a potty? So, I ended up buying a drink at Chipotle so I could get their bathroom code. As I was about to enter the bathroom some homeless guy was going to enter it, with an entirely different code none the less, but he let me go first. However, there was someone in there when the homeless guy opened the door to let me in. It was some rough looking older women who was spraying something into her mouth but it probably wasn’t breath freshener. I returned back to the Mediterranean lunch place thinking that the Chicken Shawarma bowl that I told Shirley to get me would be waiting. Turns out she ordered me the wrong thing. I lost my shit to a degree but kind of hid it. In my defense, this was way more time than I was use to spending with my family. That Saturday felt like three Saturdays, I remember thinking to myself at 11 am Saturday morning that it felt like 4pm. Not that I don’t like my family, but I am use to doing stuff I like on the weekends that typically doesn’t involve spending time with them. (they don’t really like me either so I don’t feel all that bad about it).

After we had hit our late lunch we went a little further down fifth avenue and ended up touring St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Again, my kids were an encumbrance to truly enjoying the experience. They had a bunch of Saints all over the place and a little bio on them. However, my kids didn’t have the patience for me to read all the bios. I had heard Saint Carl was the Saint of dad’s who are extremely annoyed by their families, and I was hoping to find him. After our Fifth Avenue tour we made our way to a subway stop that would take us back to the hotel so we could recharge before going out for dinner and a broadway show. Initially I had suggested we go to the Knicks Nets game a MSG that Sunday night, but Shirley thought Book of Mormon was a better option. Shirley had gone out to hit the Christmas bizarre again while the kids and I went to Nordstrom Rack by our hotel in hopes of finding some deals on cologne. My kids have somehow gotten into designer fragrances. However, even if we had found the JPG gold fragrance

at a reasonable price, the line was way too long to purchase it. When we caught up to Shirley I told her I needed to pee (poor planning on my part knowing what I knew about the availability of public toilets in NYC) and I looked in the beer garden she was at for some sign of a toilet, but it was like being in the dessert and trying to find water. She said there was some taco place near there and maybe it had a bathroom and then she proceeded to walk around aimlessly while my bladder almost exploded. Eventually I lost my shit and expressed what I believed to be much warranted frustration. Ultimately, I had to buy a bottle of water at a convenience store so I could get their bathroom code to take a wiz. This time there was a person in the bathroom and they had the door locked. Eventually I pounded on the door and the response was “I’m in here” to which I responded “hurry up” the person came out saying “unfucking believable dude!” Not sure why people like to loiter in public bathrooms in NYC, but I’m of the opinion that one should get in and get out. Finding the taco place I immediately nixed it due to the fact that it resembled the chaos that is the Costco cafeteria on a Saturday afternoon but without the organizational structure the best warehouse club on the planet has to offer. We ended up at a sushi place where I was able to watch most of the second half of the Bills/Chiefs game.

The play we had settled on was The Book of Mormon. For some reason we thought our kids would enjoy a broadway musical since it was by the creators of South Park, we were wrong. We ended up leaving at intermission, which wasn’t terrible since Shirley and I had both seen it before. Regardless, I am sure there were some patrons wondering who in their right mind would bring a 14 and 11 year old to this. The answer would be Shirley and I. I don’t even want to get into the movies they have already watched and who knows what kind of shit they are seeing on the internet. If I had the unfettered access they have I would have never left my room, that’s why I am so proud of them for the ten minutes a day they do.

This morning we had to catch a 5:30 Uber to make sure we made it onto our 8am flight. The ride over to the airport was uneventful and the flight was more of the same. When we touched down a little after 10 I nonchalantly asked Shirley if she could bring the kids to school, not letting on to the fact that I wanted to get to MVP for the brunch basketball run followed by a little bit of tennis. It was good to be home.

Justifiable Murder

Roughly a month ago I had a murder trial that involved a client who claimed he acted in self defense. Self-defense seems like a great route to go when you kill someone, until you realize the hurdles that need to be leapt over to be able to justify taking another human beings life. The trial started on a Monday morning and what was different about this as opposed to a lot of other trials I handle, is that it was the only one on the docket and I knew there would be no l last second plea deal. In a lot of situations a trial is set with a bunch of other trials and either the trial doesn’t go because another case set for trial is older, or a plea deal is reached day of trial. I had negotiated a plea deal for this client that was a fairly good deal under the circumstances. My client turned the deal down and due to it being a murder trial the judge we were in front of had cleared the docket for the week for our trial. I’d rather no I am going to trial than have a situation where it could plead out, it could get adjourned, or for whatever reason your trial leap frogs other trials you thought were ahead of your trial.

Jury selection is what begins the entire process and I actually had been called for jury duty the previous summer so I was then able to peek behind the curtain. When you go to jury duty in Kent County they play a video for you and the video they play has the chief judge explaining the process. His staff was involved in filming the video and when he thought the video was done he proceeded to ask his staff “how was that?” I went up and told him about it and he then proceeded to pull some strings to I was never actually called up to possibly be selected as a juror. They filled the courtroom with potential jurors and already had the first 14 jurors go in the jury box to begin the process. For a life offense each attorney is allowed 12 peremptory challenges where you can excuse a potential juror and not need any basis to do so. In addition, there are challenges for cause if there is an actual reason the person would not be suited to sit on a jury. Of the first segment of jurors, one of them was wearing a slip knot T-shirt and struck me as the type of guy I’d want on the jury, unfortunately the prosecutor realized this and booted the guy. The judge started out by asking the 14 people seated if they had any issues that would preclude them from serving on the jury. One of the jurors indicated that they have to pee every forty five minutes, making it impractical for them to sit on the jury since they take breaks every hour and a half or so. A second juror indicated that he had severe anxiety and that he was having a panic attack at that very moment, to make matters worse he had already burned through his allotted days worth of medication and it was only 9:30. Needless to say both of those jurors were excused for cause. In addition, another juror had to reveal to the entire courtroom that they had IBS and were summarily excused for cause as well.

After that was taken care of and three more jurors were seated and indicated they had nothing holding them back from serving as a juror, the prosecutor began his questioning of the potential jurors. As he began to question jurors, sobbing could be heard from the back of the courtroom. One of the judges clerks eventually alerted him to the disturbance in the courtroom but he decided we could continue on and address it later. However, it got louder and the judge was forced to stop the questioning and deal with the disturbance. The sobbing juror indicated to the court that she had PTSD from an auto accident and her sobbing turned into a complete meltdown. The judge allowed her to be excused and as she left she attempted to stifle her tears and told the judge through sobs, I’ll be good in six months, you can call me back then.

Mid morning we had a jury of 14 and were ready to start the trial. The prosecutor gave his opening statement and I reserved mine. I don’t always reserve mine, but it seemed like the proper strategy under the circumstances. The killing took place at what is referred to as a trap house. A trap house is a place where people do crack and hang out. I prefer to just hang out, but if there’s crack available I totally get it. Technically Big Sed was on the lease and the one responsible for not paying the rent. This particular night there were a lot more people at the trap house than normal because they were throwing Big Sed a going away party, he was being evicted. Big Sed was one of the many witnesses that the prosector called for his case in chief. Big Sed was legally blind and couldn’t see shit. Big Sed was also present in the kitchen when the victim in the case was killed and claimed to see what happened. On cross examination I held up a picture for Big Sed from the podium where I was questioning him, he had no idea what it was, I went five feet closer, he still had no idea what it was, I had to get within a foot of him for him to be able to identify what was in the picture.

There were a number of other people who testified who were present at the trap house who testified but none of them actually saw exactly what happened (neither did Big Sed) other than one witness who claimed to have seen the entire altercation that led to the shooting. He testified that the victim was shot with a revolver and that it was chrome in color and had a cherry butt to it. The actual murder weapon was a semi automatic black handgun. The rest of the witnesses who were at the trap house testified to events and circumstances leading up to the shooting but did not witness the actual shooting. In looking through the police reports there was another person who was interviewed who claimed to have witnessed the shooting, I was wondering why she wasn’t testifying until I realized she was dead. In addition to her being dead, there was another witness who died along the way. Almost every witness who was involved with the trap house had a nickname, Butters, big Sed, little Sed, Dee Dee, and Snots were just a few of the nicknames of the witnesses from the incident.

After the prosecution rested I made my opening statement and called the only witness I had other than my client. Turns out, the Friday before trial a new witness surfaced who claimed to have been at the trap house when the shooting occurred and saw the decedent with a gun in his hand prior to being shot. Conveniently this witness was housed at the jail so I could speak with her but inconveniently she was a completely unreliable crack head. She testified to what she told me she was going to testify to and then my client took the stand. Many of you may know this, maybe all of you, but a person has the right to decline testifying if the person so chooses. However, it’s pretty hard to establish a claim of self defense without doing so. I wouldn’t say things were going splendidly when I got my client up to the part where he shot Cocoa, but they weren’t going terribly either. However, this particular judge allowed the jury to write down questions after every witness testified that they had for that particular witness. There were two questions they had for my client and one of the questions resulted in him elaborating on the shooting and indicating that he continued to shoot the victim even when he had dropped his gun. The amount of force used to defend oneself needs to be reasonable and justified. Once my client indicated Cocoa no longer had his gun and he continued to shoot, his actions were neither.

I have since left my partnership but when I was in it we had a partner who left and we all hated him. He had a jury come back with a guilty verdict in 11 minutes once. That was the threshold for all of us whenever we went to trial. I blew way past the 11 minute mark, the jurors took lunch and then deliberated until 3:30, coming back with a guilty verdict. Unfortunately, it was to first degree murder, meaning they believed it was premeditated and more importantly that my client is going to prison for the rest of his life. The good news for him, because he went to trial he has an automatic right to appeal.

Barely Illegal

Summer is upon us and as I get prepared for the summer I typically want to get all of the things checked off my not fun to do list before I get to the to do list that involves fun stuff. Fortunately, there were two things that held me back from attending Parker’s lacrosse tournament this weekend in Oxford so I was able to get the not fun to do list completed. The first thing holding me back that was further complicated a week ago Saturday, that was our pets. Someone needed to stay back and take care of the pets. Two dogs, that was the extent or our pet portfolio until that fateful Saturday. Shirley had been laying the ground work that we were getting a kitten, which inevitably will become a cat with no attributes other than its ability to kill rodents. That morning I returned home and heard noise upstairs, thinking it was the dogs I didn’t pay much attention to it until I realized it was Parker. I yelled up to him “what are you doing up there?” His response “playing with the kittens”. My response “Kittens?!?!?!” Shirley and I had discussed her desire to acquire two cats and I gave her a hard no. Of course when she arrived home she said she would return the one that hissed at every one in the house when you even looked at it, but it wouldn’t be until Monday. Guess what happened on Monday? Or should I say, what didn’t happen on Monday.

The second thing holding me back was an occurrence completely out of my control, the kittens thing was somewhat out of my control, but me totaling my truck, entirely out of my control. I had a guy do a u-turn in and out of a driveway without looking both ways leading to an unavoidable collision between he and I and the unavoidable me yelling at him WHAT THE FUCK!?!? (amongst other things) when I got out of my vehicle. He took it well and ultimately gave me a ride home. I was with in walking distance had I not had my golf clubs, water ski, and tennis equipment to carry home with me. When we got in his truck we discovered he couldn’t really turn left, fortunately it was mostly right turns to get back to my house. Saturday was the day I was picking up my new truck making it impossible for me to go to waste my, I mean attend the tournament.

Now, I love my father in law, and he is a great guy, but he is old and old people I have found to be particularly annoying, everyone annoys me, but old people do it the most. He was nice enough to let me borrow his truck and then nice enough to give me a ride to get my new truck so he could have his truck back. (I actually drove us to Battle Creek but that was best for everyone) He has gotten to the stage in his life that if my mother in law isn’t around he is a rudderless ship. Aiden was also with us, and on the way back we decided to stop at McDonalds for lunch. It had been years since I had eaten anything other than an egg McMuffin or a Mcflurry at McDonalds. Jim Gaffigan use to do this bit about how people were embarrassed to admit eating at McDonalds and if encountering someone they knew there, would rather claim to be meeting a hooker there instead of eating at McDonalds. Over my protests we landed on McDonalds due to lack of other viable options. Al went up to get his drink filled and asked no one in particular “where are the napkins?” despite there being thousands of them right in front of him. I wanted to tell him we were at the rare McDonalds where they didn’t have napkins and that he needed to go into the bathroom for some toilet paper if he wanted to clean off his hands as he ate, but another patron pointed them out before I could sarcastically respond to his cry for help. I was pleasantly surprised at how tasty the spicy chicken sandwich was and I was also reminded that McDonalds fries are the best in the business.

It was just me Aiden, Max, and Murphy, and the two cats, whose names I’m not learning, Saturday night. Aiden wanted to watch a movie and we started out with Super Bad, but even that movie made me uncomfortable to watch with Aiden so we moved on to Hot Tub Time Machine. I knew Super Bad was raunchy because I had seen it before, I just forgot how raunchy. Hot Tub Time Machine on the other hand was a first view for both Aiden and I. A discerning parent would have, at the very least, looked to see if there was anything particularly objectionable to be concerned about in the movie. The first set of bare breasts took me by surprise as did the second. I told Aiden to turn his head away as I continued to look at the wonderful breasts presented on my 65 inch television, HD tv is truly remarkable.

The Lacrosse tournament ran into Sunday and I left Aiden home to keep an eye on the pets so I could get a Sunday morning round of 18 holes in. When I made it back home I was instantly attacked by Aiden asking me if we could go to Green Lake. He normally is very eager to go to Green Lake, but he was even more relentless and impatient about going due to the fact he had obtained his boater’s safety certificate and wanted to take the Wave Runner out on his own. The weather wasn’t great and I had to clean out the garage and my storage shed, where I keep my mower and other important things, as well as many non important things that should have been thrown out years ago. I also had to make sure the Wave Runner would actually start and had oil in it. Four hours later, and after being asked an uncountable number of times if we were going out to the lake by Aiden, we were on our way. I managed to get the Wave Runner fired up and took it for a short test drive to make sure none of the warning lights went off. I had winterized it and did it based off a Youtube instructional video, skipping many of the possibly important steps along the way. I handed it off to Aiden and he came back and summoned me claiming it was smoking, which it was. I took it out again, burned off what I assumed was oil (white smoke) and handed it back off to him.

Shirley and I were putting new carpet on one of the wood bunks on the wave runner shore station. Usually when we try to do a project together it’s we but really just me. This time it was both of us and as we toiled away we lost track of Aiden. Eventually it seemed like he had been gone for too long so I went off to ask my cousin’s husband if I could borrow their personal watercraft to see where Aiden was. As I was asking I saw Aiden whip by and was relieved. A few minutes later he came up to us crying and upset. Turns out a wakeboard boat had confronted him about coming too close to their boat. He claims they called him a pussy and that they were filming him. Sadly, it was the first time a strange adult had spoken to him like that. By the time I was his age I had had dozens of encounters with adults that required them to yell at me like that. My first instinct was to get on the wave runner with Aiden and have him point them out to me. I am like a moth to a flame when it comes to conflict and I was going to stir some shit up. Shirley talked me down and we finished up the shore station project and headed home. I stopped and picked up a pizza and when I made it home Shirley informed me that Aiden wasn’t actually legal to be riding the Wave Runner…..by 3 years. When I was a kid you could get your boater’s “license” when you were 12 and that entitled you to drive whatever you wanted, I could have driven a 45 foot scarab with twin 454 engines if I wanted to. I had heard some chatter that they had changed the laws, but hadn’t paid much attention because I wasn’t trying to get my boater’s license.

There are two problems with this latest development. The first being that I had already determined that Aiden being able to ride solo on the Wave Runner was the best thing ever, I would only have to drive the damn thing twice a year, when I put it in and when I take it out. The second problem is that when he is 14 he can legally drive it with a parent accompanying him. It is terrifying letting anyone else drive one of those things when you are the passenger, especially a teenager. There is always a work around that allows one to break the law and get away with it. My work around, which hinges on selling it to Shirley, is me getting a stand up jet ski (I’ve always wanted one) so that Aiden can drive the wave runner by himself still and I will just keep an eye on him. What could go wrong?

Psych!

This past winter when we went to Chicago we played a game on our phones called Psych. There are different categories that you can play, but one is picture this, where you caption a photo that they show you. The object of the game is to come up with the most clever/funny caption so that everyone picks yours. Unfortunately, a number of the photos are of black people that open up the caption to highly offensive racist comments. On top of that, my kids go out of their way to be as shocking as they possibly can when we play this game. They don’t care about clever or funny, they care about being highly objectionable. (not sure where they get that from, I make sure my highly objectionable material is also funny and clever) In addition, if the photos don’t allow them to be racist they will throw in at least some homophobia. That being said, whenever my kids make the inappropriate caption, guess who gets the blame from Shirley? Not my kids, for some reason it is my fault our kids are racist homophobes, not the fact that we live in one of the whitest and Trumpiest school districts in the entire state. I am pretty sure that there is not a racist gene, nor is there a homophobic trait that can be genetically passed along. So I must say a lot of racist shit at home and make terrible comments about fags, right? I don’t, I have probably made three racist comments in front of my kids in the time I have known them, and they were really funny so it was ok.

This is obviously a teaching moment for Shirley, I’m not stepping up and condoning their behavior, but I am also not laughing at their captions, but mainly because they aren’t funny, not because they are inappropriate. The reality is that most stereotypes are rooted in truth and when factually accurate aren’t really racist. A number of years back I was at the MVP pool and there was a black kid getting ready to jump in at the deep end of the Crahen pool which is ten feet deep. I thought to myself “the lifeguards had better be on alert” sure enough, he sunk like a stone and one of the lifeguards had to drag him out of the pool. I based my knowledge of black people’s swimming ability to predict what was likely to happen. It is similar to coming up on an accident scene and seeing one driver who is a white male, and another driver who is an Asian women, no need for the investigating officer to even ask questions, give the Asian women the ticket for causing the accident. Not sure if I have mentioned this, but I listen to NBA radio on XM. I love the diversity, way more diverse than the NASCAR station (they actually have a NASCAR station). Somehow black people’s ability to swim was brought up due to a sideline interview of a player that referenced the beach. The black audience weighed in and agreed they typically don’t like the water and therefore aren’t great swimmers. (wonder if the Nascar station had a similar segment about Asian women’s driving ability?) It was conceded by the black audience that it wasn’t racist to assume a black person can’t swim. Similarly, it’s safe to say white men can’t dance. It’s not racist, it’s been proven through empirical data that white men can’t dance, obviously there are exceptions to every rule, some white guys can get really drunk and think they are good dancers even though they aren’t, but only Justin Timberlake and John Travolta break the rule.

Speaking of our trip to Chicago that allowed my kids to really express the bigotry burning inside of them, this weekend we are set for a return trip to the Windy City. Initially, Shirley indicated that she just wanted to go with the kids. I responded that that would be fine with me. However, I recalculated things in my head and decided that I should at least feign some disappointment in the fact that they wanted to exclude me. So, I circled back and acted like I was hurt by the fact that I was being left behind. Ultimately, it backfired and I was invited on the trip. Spending the weekend with Max and Murphy doing whatever I want, while not that much different from my typical weekend minus the guilt, would have been truly glorious. There is just something about having the house entirely to yourself and not having to worry about someone trying to make you feel guilty about your decisions. At least I will be there to regulate spending and say no, it’s a word the kids and Shirley never hear when it’s just the three of them.